


Just Another Star

by Filigranka



Category: Il Gattopardo | The Leopard - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Genre: Angelica Sedàra/Concetta Corbera - pre-relationship, Character Study, Gen, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 16:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9558326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/pseuds/Filigranka
Summary: Angelica’s instincts, from the very beginning, told her she must be liked.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nabielka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/gifts).



> Beta-read by lirin - thank you very much!

Angelica’s instincts, from the very beginning, told her she must be liked. Adored and admired, too, but first and foremost, she must be liked. People must take a liking to her upon meeting at, their first sight.

She had done her best to please her father—her mother, she understood quickly, hadn’t been important and her mother, unfortunately, could never like her, could never stop being jealous of her youth, her innocence, her beauty—and had made him love her more than any other of his vast assets. She had done her best to please the teachers and had simultaneously made other girls enjoy her presence (her! a maiden from a common family!). It had been an almost  impossible task, one which had cost her many silent tears—but she’d succeeded, emerging victorious and strong.

Yet before her visit to Prince of Salina’s house she had almost fainted from nerves. He was the Prince, the Lord of her home village, the third after God and the King and no political changes could chase that image from her mind.

But when she entered the room—fresh, beautiful, natural, just as she’d been taught by the teachers and her own wits—and felt the Prince’s gaze, warming with every second, upon herself, all her fright abandoned her. The Prince was pleased, she felt it. She was liked. She was enjoyable. She was worth—ah, what she wasn’t worth at that moment?

After that first triumph, Tancredi was an easy prey. Young, full of bravado, not all that different from the peasant boys from her youth. Just gentler, so much gentler—that gentleness let her conquer him with ease and made her feel defeated at the same time. She took a liking to him, somehow, maybe for a first time in her life, and was completely entranced by the new, whimsical feeling.

Only that miracle could explain why she hadn’t noticed Concetta earlier. Or rather—why it took her a few visits to understand that Concetta didn’t really like her, was just polite, in that strange, seemingly meek, aristocratic way.

And that, Angelica felt, was impermissible, even if she didn’t quite understand why. If she ever asked the old Prince, he might feel inclined to explain the social dynamics between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie. If she ever asked her father, she would simply heard that “A girl has to be pleasing, it’s the only capital which is truly hers; but don’t worry, darling, the rest of capital is in the hands of family—my hands—and you know how I care about you.” But she never asked, and so she just knew she had to conquer the Corbera sisters ’ hearts, if she was to truly win the game in which the God (and her father, and politics, and fate, and her own ambition, but she didn’t care about such a trifles) placed her.

And if there was something she herself really, really liked, it was winning.


End file.
